Reactions to story from The New York Times

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  Icahn Confirms Stake And Proxy Fight; Sends Letter to Yahoo Board; Pushing For Microsoft

  http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-icahn-confirms-stake-se...
  71 days ago in paidContent.org · Authority: 2,468

  Icahn Confirms Stake And Proxy Fight; Sends Letter to Yahoo Board; Pushing For Microsoft By Joseph Weisenthal - Thu 15 May 2008 05:58 AM PST Game on: Carl Icahn has confirmed a 59 million share stake in Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), and he plans to push for the

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    Dallas Mark Cuban to join Yahoos Board!

    http://www.texasstartupblog.com/2008/05/15/dallas-mark-cuban...
    71 days ago in Texas Startup Blog · Authority: 106

    If Carl Icahn has his way, Mark will be in the cat birds seat at his old company. From Carls letter: During the past week, a number of shareholders have asked me to lead a proxy fight to attempt to remove the current board and to establish a new board
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  Icahn Wants to Take Over Yahoo

  http://www.searchenginejournal.com/icahn-wants-to-take-over-...
  70 days ago in Search Engine Journal · Authority: 2,277

  Microsoft may have walked away from the table in negotiations with Yahoo for a takeover deal, but just because theyve pulled their bid, that doesnt mean the takeover talks have ended. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn lauched a proxy war to unseat Yahoos
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  Yahoo: I have seen the future of search, and its a monkey?

  http://venturebeat.com/2008/05/15/yahoo-i-have-seen-the-futu...
  71 days ago in VentureBeat · Authority: 3,123

  As the corporate battle for control of Yahoo continues, the companys search team is working busily to make the target of all the backroom shenanigans (namely, Yahoos search technology and web portal) more powerful by opening it up to third-party
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  2008 05-16 MediaBytes: YAHOO - ICAHN - CBS - CNET - BLACKBERRY - WPP - IAC - ASK - DICTIONARY

  http://www.shellypalmermedia.com/2008/05/16/2008-05-16-media...
  70 days ago in MediaBytes With Shelly Palmer - Technology, Media and Entertainment News and Opinions · Authority: 111

  YAHOO Chairman ROY BOSTOCK sent CARL ICAHN a letter Thursday that said Icahns perspective on the botched MICROSOFT deal reflects a significant misunderstanding of the facts about the Microsoft proposal. Bostock repeated that Yahoo remained open to a
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  More Of The Same

  http://online-pr.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-of-same.html
  70 days ago in Online Public Relations Thoughts · Authority: 30

  There will be more of this kind of fight in the future -- a dissident shareholder attempting to remove directors. Under the law, shareholders have more power than before, and they are using it. It is hard for directors to defend themselves, especially
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  CBS acquires CNET for $1.8 billion

  http://www.torstensson.com/weblog/2008/05/cbs-acquires-cnet-...
  70 days ago in Henrik Torstensson's Weblog · Authority: 59

  Corporate raider Carl Icahn's attempt to sell Yahoo! to Microsoft is not noise, but it is CBS acquisition of CNET for $1.8 billion that I find truly interesting. My relationship with CNET is no longer a daily love affair, but in the pre-blog world
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  Microsoft-Yahoo again?: Investor Icahn tries to oust Yahoo board

  http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/05/15/icahn_yahoo/index...
  70 days ago in Machinist - Salon.com · Authority: 1,037

  Over the past few weeks, Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor and troubled-firm troublemaker, has been buying up shares in Yahoo, looking for all the world like he was preparing to oust the company's board of directors. Turns out, yup, that was his plan
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  Updates

  http://www.boumanblog.com/2008/05/updates.html
  65 days ago in BoumanBlog.com · No authority yet

  Micosoft/Yahoo Update May 20, 2008 The deadline to nominate alternate directors for the Yahoo board has recently passed. Microsoft has not pursued the proxy fight path. Rather they are looking at a less aggressive option, to collaborate with Yahoo on internet advertising. However, uber capitalist Carl C. Icahn, has made it public that he will induce a proxy fight in an effort to revive the merger. Just after the news of the failed first attempt, Icahn bought approximately 50 million shares of Yahoo. Microsoft has yet to publicly comment if they will engage in talks with Yahoo if Mr. Icahn's proxy fight is successful. Icahn nominated a full slate of impressive alternate directors by the May 15th deadline. They are as follows: Lucian A. Bebchuk, a law professor at Harvard; Frank J. Biondi Jr., a former chief executive of Viacom and Universal Studios; Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and a founder of Broadcast.com; Keith A. Meister, an executive at Icahn Enterprises; Brian S. Posner, the chief executive of the equity firm ClearBridge Advisors; and Robert K. Shaye, co-chairman and co-chief executive at New Line Cinema. Carl Icahn won't let the idea of a Microsoft/Yahoo die in the near future. I will anxiously be awaiting news as it becomes available. I definitely did not see a third party coming into play. I thought that Microsoft was going to do the proxy fight solo. Maybe Steven Ballmer is the puppeteer behind the scenes but the Carl Icahn twist had made this soap opera even more fantastic. I mentioned that I wanted to see a proxy fight, but this is much better than I could have expected. Hold on to your stocks ladies and gentlemen, it's going to be a wild and crazy ride. Personal Update I have started to work for a website called www.quarterlife.com. I will be doing web marketing for them, in an effort to drive traffic to their social networking site. Due to my fear of the consequences of the confidentially agreement I signed on day one, I won’t divulge anymore information (I don’t have $500k sitting around). I will also be working part time as an intern at Sideways Media, learning the ropes of web marketing for up and coming bands. My schedule is loaded to the max, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Lastly, I’m planning on moving into an apartment other than my cousin’s soon. I will then officially be THAT friend that lives in California that you can visit.
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  SEO resources May 20

  http://www.banner-stands.biz/2008/05/seo-resources-may-20.ht...
  66 days ago in SEO Blog · Authority: 24

  Free Troodos GPS Map Can You Win Back A Scorned Evangelist? We all know how important brand evangelists are to the success of our company. An enthused evangelist will defend your brand to the death, talk about you to their friends, support you in blog entries and deep inside comments, and let their excitement for you spill over into everything they do and get others excited by association. But what happens when you lose these people? Can you ever really win them back? I'm in a bit of an emotional pit this afternoon as I brand that I loved and bid farewell too now wants to make amends. It's been more than two months since we parted ways and the new face running the ship wants to reach out. I'm hearing words like "re-engage", "our history", and "trust" and I'm wondering if it can be done. If it's really possible to win back someone who put all their trust in you and then watched as you threw it away. To be honest, I'm not sure it's possible, but given the power evangelists hold wise companies will at least try. Here are some tips from a scorned brand evangelist about how to work your way back into the heart of someone who loved you.Own Up To Your Mistake: You did something to make that dedicated brand evangelist turn away and denounce your company. What was it? If you don't know, make sure you find out directly from them what it was. Don't insult them by assuming. Once you know, apologize. And mean it. Explain how the situation occurred, how sorry you are that they felt hurt/betrayed/lied to/abandoned and then explain why it will never happen again. If you don't know how to keep similar situations from occurring, recruit them to help you. Show them that they're a valuable part of your organization.Create An Honest Dialogue: Sure, the goal is to win the evangelist back but you're only going to be able to accomplish that with complete honesty. This isn't some fair-weather fan you isolated; this was someone who trusted your brand and put their faith in you. This is someone who spoke out on your behalf to others and caused people to give you a second glance. You owe it to them to be completely transparent. If you're not, they'll be able to tell and they'll feel even more insulted and irate than before. They'll probably also be less likely to stop talking about how much they hate you. There's really nothing worse than a pissed off former brand evangelist, is there?Calm Their Fears: Now that the initial trust has been broken, you're going to have to work ten times as hard to get it back. It's not going to be accomplished in a single phone call or even through several email strings. It's going to take time and a lot of effort on your part. It's up to you to calm their fears and answer any question they may have. You may find that several heart-to-heart phone calls may do the trick or, if it makes sense, maybe it's a better idea to fly the person out to headquarters and let them get a taste of the brand they loved. Remind them what they were fighting for.Get them Excited Again: You need your brand evangelists to support you, but what are you giving them? Why should they take you back and invest their energy in you? Give them a reason to believe. Show them why they'll be proud to be on your team. Winning back a lost brand evangelist is really about earning their trust and proving that you're still a company worth believing in. Would you be able to take back a brand that betrayed your trust the first time around? What lengths would they have to go to in order to prove how important you were to them? I don't know if the brand that let me down will ever be able to win me back, but it's something I continue to think about. SEO Weekend Update Microsoft, Yahoo Continue To Annoy Me I didn't really believe that all the MicroHoo chatter was behind us, but part of me really, really hoped. I'm a little tired of talking about nonevents, but here we are again. On Sunday, Microsoft issued another weekend statement saying that they're "continuing to explore and pursue...an alternative that would involve a transaction with Yahoo! but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo!" Er, what does that even mean? Epic Yawn, Microsoft. No one really knows what Microsoft's cryptic note refer to, but we're all guessing anyway. The most popular theory is that Microsoft is looking to get its hands on some of Yahoo's search share. Sounds viable. Personally, I think the way Yahoo can best help Microsoft is to bring some eyeballs to Microsoft adCenter, which most agree is the best ad serving platform that no one's using. I'd love to see that platform get some actual traffic. Regardless of what Microsoft's latest sonnet really means, Yahoo appears to be back the bargaining table, which I'm sure has nothing to do with the fact that its own stakeholders were revolting. Fun! Should Brands Buy Back Their Fan Pages On Facebook? There's a post over on The Unofficial Facebook Guide that tells the sad story of users getting banned for creating branded fan pages. Nick O'Neill writes that ever since Facebook unveiled Fan pages onto the site, enthused brand evangelists have been jumping at the chance to create pages for the brands they love. Sadly, it seems the pages they've created are being taken down and, in some cases the users' accounts are being banned. Yikes. While banning personal accounts because a user was excited about a feature you offer is 100 percent ludicrous, I do think it's a good idea for brands to take control of their Facebook pages, even if John Battelle doesn't. Sure, it's likely that these brand evangelists are completely well-intentioned but I don't think you should hand over your logo, your message, or your public face to someone simply because they were first to try and register the page. You also don't want a hundred splinter Fan pages sprouting up for your brand, you want one official one where all of your fans can unite and support you. And if your Fan page is going to be in front of that many eyeballs, you want to make sure you're the one in control of it. Remember our friend Jackie Liebergott from last week? On Thursday I wrote that My College President Kills Kittens and showed how someone had created a false Facebook profile for Jackie Liebergott, the president of my alma mater Emerson College. Well, it turns out they've also created a fake Jackie Liebergott Fan page. Now, if you were Emerson College, wouldn't you want to get control of that page? Poor kitten-killer Liebergott. Encourage users to engage, to write wall posts, to answer polls, to go out in the real world and evangelize, but you have to hold on to the keys. Otherwise you're just opening yourself up for disaster. Would Yahoo Be Stronger Without Search? At Search Engine Journal, Loren Baker asks if Yahoo would be stronger without search. It's an interesting theory but not one I'm inclined to support. Perhaps Loren's right in that Yahoo would become more profitable, but it's still not a direction I want to see them take. They might make more money but would you still respect them in the morning? I wouldn't. It's not a good course for them and it's sure not going to help the industry any. Personally, I'd rather see someone step in and get Yahoo to start leveraging their many verticals. Yahoo has all the portal strength an engine could ask for, and yet they're not using it. Tapping into all of that is how Yahoo will succeed and grow. I still have faith in Yahoo and I don't want to see them sell out and become completely useless. Someone has to come along and challenge Google. Yahoo's sitting back at a pretty distant second right now, but Google's not going to reign forever. At some point, someone will come up and beat them. That will never be Yahoo if they hang up their gloves before the fight is over. Hang in there, Yahoo. Don't be so quick to sell out. Even if Microsoft does keep sweet talking you back to the table. Fun Finds Copyblogger has launched a Twitter Writing Contest. You write your best 140 character story and the winner receives an iPod Nano 4 GB. Your story has to be exactly 140 characters. Over or under isn't going to cut it. Good luck! Darren Rowse lists 12 Traits of Successful Bloggers even though the URL says eleven. Don't be fooled. Who Will Activate The Internetz? There's an interesting conversation brewing regarding Facebook's decision to block Google Friend Connect from inside its walls. According to Facebook, the decision was simply one of privacy. They claim that Friend Connect violates Facebook's Terms of Service, redistributing user information without users' knowledge. Google, however, defended its service saying that users are in full control of their information and can unlink accounts at any time. Therefore Facebook's argument? Pretty much baseless. Mark Zuckerberg, seemingly acknowledging that Facebook has acted like a jealous teenager, says he's ready to talk to Google and see if these two crazy kids can't just work something out. And really, it's in Facebook's best interest to start playing nice here and welcoming Google into the family. A revolution is taking place, and if someone hands you an invite to join the party, you'd be wise to accept it. Otherwise you're just going to get bowled over and replaced. We're quickly approaching the day where users are going to roll their eyes at the idea of having to maintain separate profiles for different Web sites. The early adopters are already at that stage. No one wants to set up, create and maintain separate Facebook and MySpace profiles. They don't want to have to re-add the same people time and time again. They don't want to have to repeat a conversation on Facebook that they're having on Twitter. Most users want to create one social networking account and then take it, and the connections they've made, wherever they go on the Web. They want the interactions that they have on one site to migrate to the next. This is where the Internet is going and Google is giving Facebook a chance to make this happen. Why are they rejecting it? If you're Facebook you have a choice to make. You can either accept Google's offer to help turn you into an open platform that users can tap into from anywhere on the Web or you can prepare to be outdated and replaced by something that does. It's your call. Sarah Lacy was quick to chime in that she doesn't want Facebook to become an open platform. The reason she uses Facebook is because she knows that all of her information is kept tucked tightly inside. She doesn't want her photos or messages escaping the walls and ending up in a Google search. And I totally get that, which is why there has to be some way to tier the information. I don't want my Facebook photos showing up in Google, but I would like to have access to my connections on other sites. Not so that I can spam them into oblivion, but because we have mutual interests and if I find something in another corner of the Web, I want to be able to share it with them. There needs to be a way to do that. I don't often agree with Robert Scoble but he seems to be on the right path with his ideas of how we can separate information. He suggests creating three groups:Your social graph (IE, the map of who your friends are).Your friends' info (IE, their email addresses, their birthdays, their relationship status, their political leanings, their gender, their favorite music and activities, and other stuff you'll find on, say, Facebook's profile).Your actual data. Say your photos, your videos, your status updates, and your wall posts. I like Scoble's groups, even though I don't agree with him on how all of that data should be used. I want to be able to take that first group of information wherever I go. I don't think I should be able to use that third group without permission. And I think the last group is totally off limits. And even if you don't agree with his groups or how each segment should be used, it's time to at least start having a conversation about it. Hopefully that's what Facebook and Google will begin doing. I can understand Facebook's hesitation to align themselves with Google, but it's the best way to turn their site into a platform and to move the Internet along. The Internet is by nature a social network. The early adopters are waiting for the company who understands that and is gutsy enough to step up and activate it. Will Facebook be that company? We'll have to see. Daily Search Forum Recap: May 19, 2008Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.... Hell Hath No Fury Like a Vlogger Scorned"They say the women treat you fine on Broadway But lookin' at them just gives me the blues". "On Broadway", George Benson I can't help but think that Philip J. Smith, President of The Shubert Organization must be singing those words from jazz legend George Benson's hit song – On Broadway. Imagine this. Over a period of [...] The Internet Doesn't Influence People Who Don't Use ItThe latest Pew Internet and American Life featured report (PDF) says that while Americans do product research online, the information they find doesn’t actually affect purchase decisions. Riiiiight. What Pew Internet and American Life meant to say was that while Americans do product research online in the specific areas of music, cell phones and real estate, they [...]

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